Speed upgrade

Apparently I can't have the free speed upgrade unless I give them £6 for the loan of a new SuperHub and spend a day waiting in for it to be delivered. No option to change the delivery address!! My existing SuperHub should be capable of supporting 150 Mbit, right? If I just ordered it and not bother waiting in would my speed get upgraded whether or not the hub was ever installed or would they be looking for the new hub?

Their service, their CPE, their rules. They won't upgrade anyone on a Superhub 1 to 150Mb or higher due to the various 'issues' it has historically had.

Ah that's a shame. OK thanks. I might chance it anyway for £6 but I'm not wasting a day on it. Do you know what courier they use?

The dreaded Yodel have been mentioned a few times...

Yep Yodel.

If you get through to retentions on 150 - they have been known to drop the £6 charge. Also if you have a virgin store - worth a visit as you may be able to walk away with a self-install upgrade kit.

Despite being told on my homepage it's ready now I was told I couldn't have it at all for another 6 months.

As for Yodel.. uck!

Logged into MyVirginMedia last night said it was ready, even though it said Dec-Feb last time i checked.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/4818222465.png

Got upgrade today, happy with that for wifi

Well I requested the increase and I am waiting. Hoping it takes no more than a few days from order.

I requested it last night, and 10am this morning it was confirmed, my BQM shows it losing connection around 11am. So they were pretty quick

So it paid off Yodel left the SH2 with a neighbour even though I think they were not supposed to. Maybe two wrongs make a right after all!

Seems like a decent hardware upgrade too. I'm now getting 95 Mb/s over 2.4 GHz WiFi as opposed to 70 Mb/s on the SH1. On 5 GHz I'm getting the full 150 Mb/s which is great as both modes can be operated at the same time with this new hub.

Do they ask you to send back the superhub 1?

Nope they tell you to take it to a recycling centre.

One thing I noted about the SH2ac vs the SH1 is it runs cooler.

A LOT cooler. Hardly above ambient. Good for the cupboard it's in. I run in modem mode.

Anybody who's upgraded should check their bill, I just checked mine after I got it up and running today to find a partial charge of £2 odd.

When I rang up to query it they confirrmed my guess that the sytem had increased the price to the full price for the higher speed, the £2 covering the remaining time left before my next billing period. They reversed it off so it is actually the free upgrade it should be, but couldn't understand why it had increased in the first place.

Given the only email I had was the one confirming the delivery date of the SH2 and the delivery/installion costs got the delivery date wrong (stated the 18th, delivered the 17th, luckily somebody was in) I shouldn't be surprised.

VM billing is a mystery to me. I was expecting a price rise as I got an email in September saying the broadband was going up by £1.75 per month on November 1st. However the partial charge has only been billed since November 6th which is the day I requested the speed upgrade.

Maybe they're not rising your price unless or until you take the speed upgrade? Or maybe the new charges only come in from the first billing date after November 1st.. unless you change your package. I can't work it out. It's only 76p for me anyway so I'm not bothered enough to ring them.

What's your billing period? It's shown on the bill, I suspect it's somewhere around the second week of the month for you and that 76p would cover the week or so from the date you requested the increase to the date your bill is due.

My currently displayed bill is the one that covers the Oct/Nov, so I wouldn't pay the planned increase until the next bill that covers the Nov/Dec period and was due in the next week or so.

Also the maths showed it was actually based on the incorrect change to my monthly payment and covered the period between my change and the time my next bill was due, plus the guy I spoke to also confirmed it was related to the incorrect increase based on the new speed, not on the planned increase.

There is an easy way to check whether they've increased your bill incorrectly, login and click on My Upgrades and Offers in the top menu bar. This was showing that I was now on the Vivid 200 package with the full higher price.

Checking that same page now it shows the correct amount I should be paying.

Edited by deleted (Wed 18-Nov-15 20:35:31)

The billing period for which I was charged £31.50 was 19th October to 18th November.

The bill I received yesterday was £40. This is £33.25 advance cost (as expected from the email) + 76p partial month billing (6th November to 18th November) + £5.99 charge for the new Superhub.

To be honest, from the email I would expect to have paid more from November 1st rather than November 6th. It's pretty clear the upgrade request did trigger the partial month billing but I don't know why.

That is odd, your right the 76p is an amount calculated on the £1.75 planned increase for that period between the 6th and 19th, but I can't see any reason why they would have charged you that as that planned increase should only apply from the next billing date after it starts. regardless of a supposedly free speed increase.

Personally I'd be tempted to call them on principle if nothing else, but if like me you've been with them a while you may find you get switched to a reduced tarrif. Apparently I was on a legacy product, so they switched me to the current one which not only saved me money from my current tariff, but also means I avoid the price increase. It does mean I'm on a new 12 month contract though, so I'm stuffed if the service degrades.

Nice of VM to be consistent. When they first put a note up on my account it said end of November, then it slipped to end of December, now it's end of March 2016
Also had my increase letter so time to call them and 'negotiate' anyway.

I know, I've replied to myself...

I've been on to VM about my account and the forthcoming price hike. Managed to negotiate a deal but had to forego the 100 to 150 speed increase. That matters not to me as it was explained it will now be 100/6 to 150/6, no increase in upload speed.

Managed to keep the same deal and same price until the next price increase letter arrives.

That matters not to me as it was explained it will now be 100/6 to 150/6, no increase in upload speed.

That info could be wrong as my upload was increased to 10 Mbit from 6 Mbit. Unless upload depends on area?

My upload is 10 too ...

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4908941858

Also 10Mb upload here too.

Sounds like I need to get back on to them as I made my decision based on what they told me. I want better upload speed because of the stuff I do as a volunteer for community radio. They told me I'd had to stay on 100 but I wouldn't have got faster upload as/when it went to 150 download. Not happy now...